If you're used to swinging a 3 lb detector then the E-Trac is going to be heavy. If you're used to a 6 lb detector then you'll notice little difference. DUH!

I'm 61 and can swing the E-Trac for several hours, but will feel it later, but then I've been swinging one for 8 years. When I was swinging the Deus the E-Trac felt like a lead pipe.

Point is the E-Trac is heavy. I've also been a guitar player for over 50 years so my arm is probably in better shape than most my age. I can still over due it if I swing the E-Trac for 4-5 hours. I will hurt for a day or so.

As far as the E-Trac or EQ800 I agree it's too early to tell. I love my E-Trac and I don't see the options on the EQ800 that give me the features I love about the E-Trac. Mainly being more accurate target ID at greater depth than any other detector I've tried. If it can't at least match that then I'll just stick with my E-Trac.

Im 61 also. I can remenber back when the Sov had just come out and the box was mounted in front of the grip. Then someone got the idea about moving the box aft and wow what a much easier detector to swing. Balance makes a difference for sure.
When the explorer first came out I got one and no matter how you held it, there was no balanced point to give it a lighter feel. All you could do was keep the coil close....and beach hunting you like that coil out a bit for maximum ground coverage......
Besides my etrac I have an X5, xterra 705 and T2.
I am glad to see minelab lightning up their machines...

I love my E-trac except for the weight. However, I am looking foward to swinging something new like the 800. I do not own the CTX so I skipped on detector. The 800 seems to have a lot of the features on the front buttons like the e-trac. might make my learning curve less.

Hey kids! I'm 77 and detect with no problems. My secret is the bike. Many of my permissions are 8 or more miles from home. If 8 miles, I ride my bike to and from. If more than 8, I drive to a parking place 8 miles from the site and bike the rest of the way. This cuts into my detecting time but keeps my body, knees, arms, and core fit enough to keep detecting with no complaints. Like the doc said, it takes commitment but in the end, you'll be glad you did it. Remember, stairs and hills are your friends. Stay away from elevators, take stairs two at a time, and search out the route on the bike that has the most hills. You'll be surprised how quickly those hills flatten out as you get in better condition.
Happy hunting!

My preliminary suggestion is to wait and see what real-world testing results come out within the first few months of the Equinox's release. Luckily, the winter is not a time when many of us here in 'Merica are out and about tearing up the ground. Plus, it gives you an opportunity to try to find a great deal on a used E-Trac- if any such thing exists - so you can have BOTH machines in your tool kit.

If you really really really need a new machine NOW, then buy the E-Trac because it has a tested-and-true track record. The variety of accessories and coils are great too.

Quoteamberjack
best thing about the etrac is the etrac wobble gotta love a near 2 k detector that wobbles like a drunken sailor minelab make good insides

AJ

AJ...Are you sure you don't mean every Garrett there is? Or is the operator wobbling? If there is a wobbly e-series it's because the pinch pads and coil hardware is done wore the fug out due to so much usage!

Quoteamberjack
best thing about the etrac is the etrac wobble gotta love a near 2 k detector that wobbles like a drunken sailor minelab make good insides

AJ

AJ...Are you sure you don't mean every Garrett there is? Or is the operator wobbling? If there is a wobbly e-series it's because the pinch pads and coil hardware is done wore the fug out due to so much usage!

LOL, I have to agree, I think its the user having a few too many its him doing the wobbling! Seriously, I never had any problem with my E-Trac, it was a tight as any detector I've owned in 35 years. No wobble what-so-ever.

Quotetogamac
Hey kids! I'm 77 and detect with no problems. My secret is the bike. Many of my permissions are 8 or more miles from home. If 8 miles, I ride my bike to and from. If more than 8, I drive to a parking place 8 miles from the site and bike the rest of the way. This cuts into my detecting time but keeps my body, knees, arms, and core fit enough to keep detecting with no complaints. Like the doc said, it takes commitment but in the end, you'll be glad you did it. Remember, stairs and hills are your friends. Stay away from elevators, take stairs two at a time, and search out the route on the bike that has the most hills. You'll be surprised how quickly those hills flatten out as you get in better condition.
Happy hunting!

Quotetogamac
Hey kids! I'm 77 and detect with no problems. My secret is the bike. Many of my permissions are 8 or more miles from home. If 8 miles, I ride my bike to and from. If more than 8, I drive to a parking place 8 miles from the site and bike the rest of the way. This cuts into my detecting time but keeps my body, knees, arms, and core fit enough to keep detecting with no complaints. Like the doc said, it takes commitment but in the end, you'll be glad you did it. Remember, stairs and hills are your friends. Stay away from elevators, take stairs two at a time, and search out the route on the bike that has the most hills. You'll be surprised how quickly those hills flatten out as you get in better condition.
Happy hunting!

Great post. Like Dean said, I wanna be like you when I grow up!

While not a TOTALLY true statement, I am of the belief that "old" is a state-of-mind...

Quotetogamac
Hey kids! I'm 77 and detect with no problems. My secret is the bike. Many of my permissions are 8 or more miles from home. If 8 miles, I ride my bike to and from. If more than 8, I drive to a parking place 8 miles from the site and bike the rest of the way. This cuts into my detecting time but keeps my body, knees, arms, and core fit enough to keep detecting with no complaints. Like the doc said, it takes commitment but in the end, you'll be glad you did it. Remember, stairs and hills are your friends. Stay away from elevators, take stairs two at a time, and search out the route on the bike that has the most hills. You'll be surprised how quickly those hills flatten out as you get in better condition.
Happy hunting!

Great post thanks for sharing your insight.
Ive only had my bike out a few times over the summer, usually ride a lot more. 8 miles is a good healthy chunk of road on a bike. Thanks again.

The eTrac is a heavy unbalanced ergonomically challenged slug. You tough guys grab your Etrac in one hand, an 8 lb stainless scoop in the other, swing and hold your coil off the wet beach sand for 5 hours to keep it from falsing then brag about how the weight is nothing.

I'm 47 years old, in good physical shape. I run 4-5 miles every other day, and I do a little weight lifting on the off days. I have always been an athlete, and still maintain an athletic build (6'2" tall, 185 pounds).

My problem is, swinging the Explorers will at times result in me fighting occasional bouts of tendonitis/tennis elbow. It's not that the machines are "too heavy" per se; obviously, if I work out doing curls with 45 pound dumbbells, in one sense that means that a 5-pound machine is not "heavy" as in "can't lift it/swing it." However, by "heavy," I think what many folks mean is that somehow, the weight, balance, angle of the handle -- whatever it is -- causes issues for some. It is just a very not-ergonomic machine. I used to hunt right-handed. Developed tennis elbow so bad from swinging the Explorer multiple hours a day, a couple of times per week, that I switched to swinging lefty. For several years now, I have hunted left-handed, but recently have been fighting through tennis elbow in the left elbow; I almost went back to right-handed, but the elbow seems to be improving now, after 6 to 9 months of irritating pain when swinging the machine.

SO, it's more than being "out of shape." There is something about these machines that for some, no matter how good of "shape" you are in, these things cause those "repetitive motion" type injuries in the elbow joint.

Steve

Steve,

A lot of brilliant people are/were left handed. You should stick with it.

Quotemrcolin2u
I'm thinking of getting a used Etrac but wondered if its better to wait until the EQ 800's are out ? Don't know if they will perform as good as the etrac but they certainly are lighter which is a big plus to me !

Lets gather some information first. What type of detecting are you planning to do parks, home sites, fields, relics, beach? What area of the country do you live in, what's your local soil mineralization like?

The EQ has many new features that are attractive but lets consider the one that could be a game changer. Minelab is claiming the EQ will have more accurate target ID at deeper depths, if true that may be a game changer. The only way to do that is to better filter out the soil mineralization that's masking deeper targets. If you do that what just happened...depth just increased. Then if you consider sites have been beat to death with Explorers, eTracs, and now CTX's over the past 18 years a machine that can suddenly reach even 2 inches deeper with a target ID may re-open those sites, if deeper targets are down there of course.

Drop a silver dime into a plastic milk jug filled with water, that's an air test. Now put 1 drop of food coloring in the water, this represents soil mineralization. The detector can still see the dime so far so good, low mineralized soil. Add a few more drops, its getting more difficult to see the dime. Now pour the whole bottle in, the dime is no longer visible. This is the effect of soil mineralization and the more mineralized it is the quicker the target is swamped by soil mineralization and is no longer detectable.

And its not just max depth but target size. Half dimes, 3 cent silvers, $1 golds already due to their size are more difficult to detect at depths a dime/cent is still detectable. It will be interesting to see what the EQ can do based on target size vs the FBS/FBS2 machines.